Ken Knudson Defies the Internal Revenue Service

Tomorrow I shall add an act of fraud to
the list of my many “crimes.” I will go to my employer, the University of
Wisconsin, and claim ten dependents on form W4. I am claiming seven more
dependents than I’m legally entitled in order to avoid the withholding tax
and, ultimately, the income tax.

I have, as you know, avoided paying taxes in the past by holding two jobs and
limiting my income to $112 per month per job — thus I was able to make a
taxable income and have nothing withheld from my salary. Then when April
15th rolled around, instead of filing form 1040 I
was able to picket your office, demanding an end to taxes in general and to
war taxes in particular.

I no longer find this method of tax refusal convenient. It’s a pain in the
neck to make sure your income doesn’t exceed the $112 limit imposed by law. I
have therefore decided to circumvent this law by breaking another.

The reasons for my tax refusal are two-fold. First, as an anarchist I am
dedicated to the overthrow of all governments and therefore cannot finance
this one. Second, and far more important, I cannot as a pacifist
conscientiously give my tax dollar to you knowing that more than 70¢ out of
each dollar will go for the sole purpose of killing people. This is morally
wrong — far worse than an individual act of “fraud” — and, therefore, I
cannot and will not support you and the system you represent.

Four years ago, Ken Knudson, a member of the pacifist Peacemaker Movement,
pioneered in a new form of tax resistance: the idea of claiming enough
exemptions on the Form W-4 Employee’s Withholding Exemption Certificate so
that no tax can be withheld from one’s wages. Last fall, on
October 5, at Lincoln Park in Chicago, a
dozen people gathered to form the first tax resistance group based on the
Knudson method. All the members adopt the Knudson approach and claim the
exemptions; then they take the money which would have been paid into the
U.S. treasury and
pool it into a cooperative association, the Chicago Area Alternative Fund,
which uses the funds for constructive, as well as voluntary, purposes.

A 25-year-old Madison [Wisconsin] man burned his $500 check and tore up an
income tax form in front of the Internal Revenue Service office
Friday. He said he was demonstrating his
opposition to military spending and the war in Viet Nam.

But the demonstration quickly backfired against Kenneth Knudson.

The shredded tax form had scarcely touched the sidewalk when a police officer
ordered Knudson to pick it up under threat of a $25 fine for littering.

Knudson complied but his troubles weren’t over yet. Another officer served
him with a warrant for failing to pay overtime parking tickets amounting to
$15. Knudson borrowed the money from several other demonstrators marching
with signs that read “No Money for Murder.”

Knudson said the $500 check represented the amount he owes in federal income
taxes.

Tax Collector Sheldon S. Cohen commented: “The government has never lost a
case in which a taxpayer refused to pay on the grounds he disapproved of how
the money is spent.”

Find Out More!

For more information on the topic or topics below (organized as “topic →
subtopic →
sub-subtopic”), click on any of the ♦ symbols to see other pages on this site that cover the topic. Or browse the site’s topic index at the “Outline” page.